Brief the team early on any potential “unorthodox” plans you have running in your head: thoracotomy, double-sequential defibrillation, or even just plans to run an especially long code because the patient has predictors for a favourable outcome.

Establish a Shared Mental Model that enhances the team’s Situational Awareness, and circle back to it often, providing updates for team members that may have been occupied with tasks, and to make sure you didn’t miss anything.

Volume, a background drip of NE, and push-dose pressors (Weingart 2015) (epi is my favourite, phenyl is OK too) are your best friends. Have all 3 happening. Every time.

Take a time-out:

The best way to make sure things are optimized is to take a time-out. This doesn’t have to be a formal checklist, but before proceeding with intubation we should develop an hard cognitive stop to assess optimization, recap, and discuss the airway plan as a team.

3. Dare to be bold

Sometimes we need to take definitive action. This is what we signed up for. Often, we spend too much time pontificating and deliberating when a patient needs an emergent therapy.

But we can all fall victim to Errors of Omission(Farkas 2014)

Our obsession with “doing no harm” creates passivity, and we swing to the other end of the spectrum: failing to act when necessary. Our culture in medicine is one that creates an tendency to favour these errors of omission: maybe we can get away with just those two peripheral IVs, maybe we can get away without intubating, maybe we can get away with another bolus instead of starting vasopressors.

Probably also influenced by the cognitive impacts of stress, cognitive appraisal, and procedural comfort. (Harvey 2010)

If you can’t get reliable BPs, or your finger palpation of the pulse can’t decide whether it feels something or not, the patient needs an arterial line.

If your RT expresses some apprehension about whether BPAP will be enough, you need to intubate.

If the patient is moaning with transcutaneous pacing but unstable without it, they need a TVP.

If you’re contemplating a third bolus, or a fourth bolus, the patient probably needs vasopressors.

If you’re considering calling a Code Bleed, the patient needs a Code Bleed.

Be aware that we all have a cognitive predisposition towards errors of omission, thinking that they are somehow less harmful than errors of commission, and guard against biasing ourselves too far in that direction

4. Invest more time at the bedside

Avoid the post-intubation high five

When the resuscitation starts to settle out, when the adrenaline switches off, we have a tendency to relax our vigilance. We might start reviewing another case or step out of the room for one reason or another.

In fact, this is often the moment of greatest vulnerability, and we need to be aware of it and guard against it. (Grossman 2008)

The best way to do that, is first to recognize that moment. Then, circle back to the beginning. I use the opportunity to do a recap, which includes the following, every time (ABCDEF):

Expected next steps: announce Plan for the next 15 minutes… further treatments, investigations, destination?

Feedback from team: any other thoughts, questions, ideas?

Be cautious handing over care to the admitting service – whether 2nd year Cardio Fellow or ICU senior, these are trainees who are less experienced and possibly out of their depth.

This is the blessing and curse of tertiary care medicine, we have access to so much specialty care, but we have to ensure that our trainees have the adequate knowledge to care for these complex and sick patients.

They come in guns blazing, and you’re not ready for them to take over just yet: “Thanks so much for coming, we’re just stabilizing this lady who is a ROSC after VFib, can I get you to do a quick echo for me? Have a look at this ECG? etc…”

Makes them feel welcome, wanted, and useful

You remain in control of the resuscitation.

When it is finally time to leave – formally hand over care

Confirm with the consultant (1) we have an agreed-upon plan that they will be carrying forward, and (2) they are comfortable with taking over the reins

Then formally announce to the room that Dr So-and-So will be taking over

5. Debrief

Every resuscitation ought to be debriefed.

After the storm has passed, there’s a surprising amount of emotional baggage that often needs to be addressed among your team. “Do you think she’s going to make it?” “How the hell could that have happened to someone so young?” “Did we do enough?”.

There’s always plenty of learning points to take away: what went well, why you approached the problem in a certain way, any educational feedback to the team, any breakdowns in teamwork/communication/etc.

There are numerous debriefing strategies out there (e.g.: PEARLS, DISCERN, INFO)… it’s better to run one imperfectly than to not debrief.

The basic steps are:

Allow for emotional offloading

Recap the case and invite analysis. Here, spend much more time listening/inviting dialogue than talking yourself

Summarize and remind the team how phenomenal they are, and that they gave the patient everything humanly possible.

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